We are pleased to announce the inauguration of the RAVSAK Small School Professional Development Scholarship. This scholarship will make the training, networking and professional development opportunities of the RAVSAK Annual Leadership Conference accessible to educators from small Jewish day schools and small Jewish communities across North America.

Imagine high school students from throughout North America coming together to share their passion for Jewish learning. Imagine 40 dedicated teens being given a challenging, contemporary case requiring them to spend evenings and weekends studying issues in Jewish law, preparing complex decisions based on numerous sources in Halakhah, and presenting their findings before exacting judges and an audience of their peers and adults. What you have just envisioned is the Moot Beit Din Shabbaton that took place April 3 to 6 in Toronto.

R AVSAK was recently selected as one of ten programs nationwide to participate in the Pilot Incentive Grants Program of the Jewish Teen Funders Network (JTFN), a youth philanthropy project of the Jewish Funders Network. This grant, together with a matching gift from the RAVSAK Executive Committee, will fund Project ROPE: Roots of Philanthropy Education, an inter-school collaborative linking Jewish sacred-text study with student philanthropy and social justice learning.

In partnership with JNF: The Jewish National Fund and in celebration of Israel at 60, we are thrilled to announce the inauguration of Ya’ar Ravsak, a new forest to be planted in the Negev starting this winter.

The Executive Committee welcomes Dr. Elliott Rabin to the RAVSAK staff as our first Director of Educational Programs. Elliott holds a bachelors degree from Swathmore College, and both a masters and doctorate from Indiana University where he was awarded the Stallknecht Prize and the Interuniversity Fellowship in Jewish Studies.

Effectively immediately, all students now accepted for admission to the American Hebrew Academy who are the children of a Jewish educator or other Jewish organization professional will also receive an annual one third tuition scholarship.

Of the estimated 500,000 children in intermarried households, only 5,400 (Kotler-Berkowitz, 2005), or barely more than 1 percent, attend Jewish day school. So clearly there is growth potential in the intermarried market.

With only days left in 5766, the RAVSAK staff sealed the last box of files, said goodbye to its temporary and tiny office space, switched off the lights and paraded across New York’s Upper West Side to RAVSAK’s new headquarters (ok, we took a cab, but you get the picture!). On Erev Rosh HaShanah, we affixed a mezuzah to the front door of our new home: The Center for Jewish Education.

Committed to excellence and effective leadership in Jewish day school education, BoardSource and RAVSAK have partnered to provide day school members with discounted access to BoardSource professional development programs and services.